


The Art they Burned

by zombie_socks



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Divergence, The fall of SHIELD, Where Was Clint Barton During Captain America 2?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 15:23:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4064914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombie_socks/pseuds/zombie_socks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even SHIELD needs an art department and theirs is run by a woman named Karen Hawthorne - an artist and forger with a photographic memory. But when Fury sends Clint to get his artificial ID for his next mission from the art department, things go sideways real fast. </p><p>A look at some of the workings of SHIELD and a take on where Clint was when SHIELD fell. </p><p>(Ignores AoU canon because, let's face it, that's what fic is for.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Art they Burned

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed and maybe moves kind of quickly - sorry.

The alarms, the bullet, the grenade. The blood. There was no intel, no information of what the hell was going on. Everything was deteriorating. Every second was providing more secrets and fewer answers. He had the sinking feeling in his gut that this was going to be the end.

Of everything.

 

…

 

It was ridiculous, really, sending him on a mission this soon after coming back from one. But Barton knew Fury kept him running these days to keep his mind off of New York. It had been two years and he still had to watch his steps around the New York SHIELD base. Everywhere he looked his sharp eyes landed on another snicker, another glare. Some blamed him, some pitied. None of them seemed to grasp that none of it was his fault.

He had trouble grasping it himself.

Hence the constant motion. He’d gotten back from Bogotá less than thirty-six hours ago. But the phone call had told him to meet with Fury personally, so he figured this was something more than the milk run mission he’d just gotten back from.

“You wanted to see me, Sir,” the archer addressed as soon as he was led into the imposing office that housed the dark director.

“I did, Barton,” he replied, turning towards him in the oversized office chair. No one could ever deny the director’s flare for drama. The black leather trench coat was proof of that. “Something big is being set in motion. I’m on my way back to DC after this meeting to deal with it.”

“And I don’t s’pose I get any insight on what this big thing is?” the archer asked, folding his arms over his chest. He liked working for SHIELD; it was better than the alternative route his life was destined to take fifteen or so years ago when Coulson plucked his ass out of jail to bring him in. But it was still a bureaucracy, and those tended to go through copious rolls of red tape and bottles of indigo dye before anything was ever presented to the public.    

And that could get annoying.

Fury sighed. “I’m still figuring that out myself.”

Barton blinked. The director, _The_ Spy, was admitting to not knowing something?

“In the mean time, I’m moving you into position on the Miracles case.” He slid a file into Clint’s hands. “That’s all you’ll need to know. Stop by The Plaza to get your ID and papers.”

He started towards the door as Clint opened the thin manila file.

The director stopped just short of the door and called over his shoulder, “And Barton, keep both eyes open on this one.”

A shiver went down Clint’s spine. _Okay,_ he thought. _This looks bad._

 

The Plaza was SHIELD’s business center. Like the Treehouse or the Fridge, it was designed with a specific purpose and armed to kingdom come. But unlike the other SHIELD centers, the Plaza housed the central financial offices, tech development labs, and the only art department for the organization.

The art director was a woman named Karen Hawthorne. The auburn-haired artist had been one of Coulson’s first strays to bring into the fold. She was an art school drop out who at the time had had a struggling portrait photography business and a rather lucrative side job of forging traveling papers, IDs, death certificates, and other official paperwork for various criminals. Her photographic memory made assuring her client’s digression a selling point. One glance at the needed documents and the customer would have perfect copies… for a price.

Coulson had offered her a chance to use her skills for the good guys. She had agreed on the condition that the grandmother who raised her would get a portion of her paycheck each month. “And it better be something an old lady can live off of,” she clarified. “You’re paying for an artist, you know.”

Clint had liked Karen the moment he met her. She was cool-headed and independent and didn’t take shit from anyone. She took her job seriously, understanding that if one discrepancy was found on her forged papers, a mission would be over long before it ever began. An incorrect seal could be the difference between freeing human slaves in Cambodia and them being killed at sea to be dumped into the inky ocean below. A failed cover ID could get an agent offed before she had the chance to even step off the plane.

So she was painstakingly detailed, as meticulous as Da Vinci, as thorough Rodin.

And she blared alt rock at a decibel that even Clint could hear _without_ his hearing aids.

“You’re going to do deaf,” he screamed as he entered her studio.

“What?” she yelled back, but then smiled. She turned down the tunes to a manageable level. “I’m just copying you, Barton. Losing my hearing in the name of service to my country.”

“That’s not funny.”

“Wasn’t supposed to be.” She shrugged before standing up and waltzing over to her complex filing system that hung from the wall. It was basically a series of nets with labels like A-C and N-P above them. Housed in each mesh sack were files pertaining to the corresponding mission. His was Miracles so she sauntered over to the K-M net and fished around in it until she had his falsified paperwork.

He’d asked once, “Why don’t you use a filing cabinet?”

“Because, Barton,” she’d answered, “these are babies. And babies don’t go in cabinets; they go in cradles.”

“Those are nets.”

“I prefer to think of them as hammocks. A nice safe hammock for the new person you are about to give life to.”

Having slept in a hammock several times in his life, he liked to think of them that way too.

“Herr Wilhelm Schwartzhaus.”

“Black house?”

“I know, sounds cool right?” She handed him the file with his fake ID and passport. “How’s your German?”

“Well I got black house translated just fine,” he retorted.

She bit her index nail, a nasty habit she was constantly trying to break. “And your Italian? I had to make an alternate ID.”

“I think I can manage,” he replied, sticking the passports and IDs into his inner jacket pockets. “I have done this before, you know. Several times.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just don’t come crying to me if the mission goes south. Those docs are better copies than the originals.”

And there it was, her line, her slogan. It was what she had told him the first time they’d met, back when he was young and stupid and still too wild to belong to an organization. She’d told him that line with such confidence, such assuredness, that he’d felt himself relax just slightly. She’d been only a few years older and yet was so sure of herself, of her work, why wouldn’t he be able to do the same…

“Okay. Well if everything is satisfactory, Barton, I have other people to create lives for so…”

“Here’s your hat; what’s your hurry, right?” he joked dryly.

She waved him off. “Something like that.”

“Thank you, Karen.”

She leaned back on the exercise ball that served as her desk chair, continuing to bite her nail. “You still owe me a photo session, Barton. I mean it. I want that perfect bow stance on film.”

He shook his head, amused at her constant attempts to get him to pose for her. “Tell you what,” he started, “I’ll see if Captain America would be willing to take my place.”

He watched her practically drool at the possibility.

She snapped her jaw shut and blinked a few times. “You do that, Bar-”

The lights went out. The radio cut off. The whir of her dying computer faded out like a failed heartbeat. “What the…?” she wondered, trying to get her CPU to turn back on.

Barton felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Everything was quiet, an eerie kind of silent that had his skin crawling. He turned up the volume on his hearing aids just to make sure they hadn’t died, even though he doubted they had.

“Was it bad weather?” Karen asked.

Clint shook his head, readjusting the aids’ volume. “And even if it was, wouldn’t there be emergency lighting?”

An alarm blared then. Red flashing lights filled the hallway outside Karen’s office. He heard footsteps coming closer, rushed, hurried, and many.

“Clint…” Karen called, a note of worry worming its way into her voice, dragging out the I in his name.

He held a finger up to his lips as he crept toward the door and peered cautiously out into the hall. A squad of black-clad SHIELD agents marched down the hallway, guns out, faces hard. One, the leader, raised a fist to get the group to stop. He took a device from his pocket and watched its screen. He barked an order Clint couldn’t hear clearly and with the flashing red light being his only source, he couldn’t read the guy’s lips. But one moment later the group spread out and stopped in front of all the doors in the office. Clint tried the handle. Locked.

His heart thudded against his ribs. This was not good.

He ducked as the swarm reached Karen’s door, depositing a guard out front. Another muffled yell.

“Get down,” Clint hissed sharply, tugging on Karen and pulling her with him. He flipped the desk over with a crash he hoped was hidden by the blaring alarm. He shoved them both behind it just as a spray of bullets began to pepper every surface, destroying what was left of her computer, making mincemeat of the files and nets on the wall. The exercise ball caught a stray and was deflating rapidly.

Clint reached for his Glock, cursing as he remembered it was downstairs in a locker where they stored all agent’s weapons while in the building. He debated about taking a chanced peek around the ball’s shrinking corpse. But the bullets stopped and the boots marched on, efficient, bloody.

“Who the fuck were those guys,” he mumbled, more to himself than to Karen beside him. He crawled out, wary of the broken glass and shrapnel bits littering the floor. He backed up to the door and watched them retreat. The leader stopped them again, and posted one man to stand at the end of the hall, a guard dog. The light flashed just as the leader was finishing his order and Clint strained to read the words on his lips.

And if he was correct, then the world was about to change.

_Hail Hydra._

 

…

 

The alarms, the bullet, the grenade. The blood.

His ears were ringing with the constant wail of the alarm. It had been over five hours and no one had turned it off yet.

But it faded, subsided as he watched the blood leak out of the bullet wound and puddle on the floor. They were so close, almost free. But was the world on the other side of the door one worth making it out into. Was this the frying pan and that the fire?

Was there even a world to crawl toward?

 

…

 

“What’s going on?” Karen asked, her voice trembling but not breaking. She’d been around bullets before, dealt with some nasty people in her time before SHIELD, but that didn’t mean an attempt hadn’t just been made on her life and the rest of the workers in their offices. _Oh God,_ she though. _Oh God, they’re all dead. They’re probably…_ she suddenly felt very sick to her stomach.

“Breathe,” Barton ordered her. He still had his back to the wall; the door had swung open, the frame damaged enough by the gunshots to undo the locking mechanism. Their new warden wouldn’t be hard to take out… if Clint had his bow. He could make that shot with an arrow from any position, anywhere. But he didn’t have any formal weapons. Just himself and what was around him…

“Clint,” Karen addressed weakly. “Clint, we’ve got to get out of here.”

He didn’t hear all of her words, but he had a feeling he knew what she’d said. The alarm was covering her voice from the guard, but it was also making it really hard to talk to each other. Karen didn’t know ASL.

The light flashed. Fade in, long hold, fade out. A dash…

Clint moved back over to where Karen was still under the desk. He took her palm and laid it flat in his. _Tell me they taught you this in training_ , he tapped.

She nodded. _Got an A actually_ , she tapped back.

Good. Morse code was adaptable to various conditions, could be seen, heard, and felt.

 _Vent?_ He asked.

She pointed up to where a small grated opening was still releasing cool air.

 _Thank God the AC still works,_ he thought sarcastically. The vent was too small for him to fit through. He’d have to get in one of the larger ones. But that was down the hall and the hall had the guard. He started looking around the room for projectiles. There was plenty of shrapnel but none of it was big enough to toss. He might have to go in for a close kill.

Karen reached across him and pointed to the second drawer in her desk. Clint opened it carefully, watching as things tumbled to the back of the now vertical surface, a concerned expression on his face. But one look inside had him almost smiling. A box cutter, three pairs of scissors, and four Xacto knives. Silent weapons for a silent kill.

He took an Xacto knife from the drawer and examined its small blade. It could do some damage but not by throwing. It would need to be a jugular slice to be a kill shot, and several smaller jabs to be only wounding.

He’d see how much resistance the guy put up.  

 _“I’m going to take care of him,_ ” Clint tapped on her palm. “ _But I’ll need a distraction.”_

She nodded and pulled open another drawer, taking out a plastic jar of turpentine. _“Smell?”_

It was subtle. But with noise pretty much taken over by the alarm and sight dictated by red flashes, maybe something subtle and odd enough would work.

Clint waited until the guard was looking down at his feet, scuffing a bored toe against the linoleum, before he poured the contents of the jar out in front of the cracked open door.     

It took a few minutes but the guard started sniffing. Clint watched as the man began following his nose, hoping he wouldn’t shrug it off as something leaking from the rain of bullets earlier. Soon he was only a few steps from Karen’s door. Clint stayed still, watching the guard from the relative shadows of the busted wall. The man squatted down to inspect the shiny something on the floor. Clint lunged.

He had an Xacto knife in one hand and the box cutter in the other. The guard was good, trained in hand-to-hand, but the element of surprise gave Clint an immediate upper hand. He dug the short blade of the knife into the guard’s arm, and brought the box cutter to his throat.

“Who do you work for?” he yelled over the alarm. He needed that confirmation.

The guard grinned wickedly. “Out of the shadows, and into the light.” He jerked hard on Clint’s holding arm, enough to make the archer slip just slightly in the wet paint thinner on the ground. The box cutter was knocked from his hands and the guard had his gun up and aimed.

“Clint!” Karen screamed from the doorway. The guard flashed his eyes over to her, turning instantly to re-aim the gun. Clint jumped on the man, but it was a second too late. A single bullet escaped the muzzle and flew towards Karen, taking a scrap of her side with it.

Clint wrestled the guard down, and placed the Xacto blade up against his throat. “Why?” he hollered.

“Cut off one head,” the man laughed, biting down on what was most likely a cyanide capsule. “Two more… shall take… its… place.”

Clint cursed, kicking the guard aside. He took his gun and checked the clip. Three bullets left in the clip. He checked the man’s pockets and belt and found two more full ones.

A whimper somehow reached his ears and he snapped his head back over to Karen. She was looking wobbly and it was then he noticed the bullet had bit her.   

“Shit, Karen,” he yelled as he rushed over to her.

She was taking deep breaths, but was able to remove her hand enough for him to see. “ _Flesh wound?”_ she asked, tapping his shoulder.

“ _Yeah.”_

_“I have cotton balls. Top drawer. Would stem some bleeding.”_

He rushed to her desk and grabbed the bag of cotton balls as well as some painter’s tape to keep the fibers in place. He made quick work of the wound and prayed she be steady enough to get out.

_“He was Hydra?”_

Clint nodded.

_“Then we can’t leave yet.”_

He stared at her, eyebrows pulling inward in question. _“Fury said something big was going down. I think it might be happening sooner than he thought. We need to get out of here.”_

 _“Not yet. There’s something we need to get to first.”_ She took in a deep breath and sat up. Clint double-checked the hallway before following her back into her office. She pulled a small flashlight from the top drawer of her desk and used it to root around some more. She pulled out a piece of paper, a felt marker, and what looked like a sheet of latex. Karen slipped Clint’s hand in hers and tapped out, “ _You remember why SHIELD hired me?”_

_“Because you’re a forger.”_

_“They could have hired any forger. Why did they choose me?”_

Clint thought about it for a moment while Karen set about scribbling on the piece of paper. _“Because you can make perfect copies.”_

 _“Yes.”_ She shoved the paper his way, tapping her marker on a particular square. _“This is a vault. Inside it is what I’ve been working on for the past three years.”_ She grabbed another paper and made a quick sketch of a generic human shape and labeled it, LMDs. Life Model Decoys. _“It was an idea. An idea that agents could have a…a robotic clone. Something to send out into the field that functioned the same way they did. Something that wouldn’t require a funeral if it got blown up or shot during a sting.”_

“ _Replace agents with robots.”_ Clint pulled his hand away and shook his head. His eyes were heavy and strained. When was SHIELD going to learn that technology could only go so far? 

“It was just an idea, Clint,” Karen said into his ear. “And in any case they weren’t even functional.”

“I’ve found it’s best to assume everything is functional with SHIELD technology when you need it to not be,” he spat back. “And vice versa.”

She glared back at him and crossed her arms, matching his stance. “Well the vault has a self destruct function and you get to help me blow it up, so there.” She held up the paper so he could see it better by her flashlight. “This is a map of the lower level where the vault is. I need you to do some recon, see if Hydra’s got any goons down there and if so, how many. The vents should lead you to the elevator shaft and then back into the vents – you know how to do it – so get me as much detail as possible.”

“And you?”

“There’s a specific set of prints required to activate the self destruct sequence.” She pulled the latex sheet towards her and propped up the flashlight as best as she could against the upturned desk. She called him over and tapped on his palm, “ _I’m going to get busy making someone else.”_

Clint nodded, still a little muddy on the plan, but good enough to do his part. Recon was easy… normally. _“You okay here by yourself?”_

She nodded and waved him off.

With practiced ease he scanned the hallway and then made his way for the vent, keeping himself hidden from the prying eyes of their attackers. The elevator shaft was easy enough to find and negotiate through. He hadn’t been a part of Strike Team Delta for no reason.

That thought invaded his mind for a moment before he shoved it away. Delta was still a sore point after New York. With Coulson gone, Nat trying to keep some semblance of order while adjusting Cap to SHIELD workings, and the nightmares of what he did under Loki still plaguing him every night, Clint wasn’t ready to face memories of his old beloved team.

He worked his way to the lower level, taking care not to make any noise in the ductwork since the alarm was much quieter down here. He kept his eyes trained on the open grates to watch out for any Hydra agents. At one point he thought he heard a conversation taking place and a couple of gunshots, but the alarm was still blaring there and his ears were not up to par.

Following the terribly drawn but perfectly accurate map Karen had drawn for him, he was able to get as close to the vault as possible before having to drop down into the hall. He scanned the area for the third time, just to be sure before taking off towards the vault.

It was massive, metallic, and terrifyingly open. A peek inside confirmed that it was empty and Clint felt his heart start to race.

He turned around to start scampering back to Karen when he came face to face with the second biggest surprise of the night.  

There under the harsh fluorescent lights was Strike Team Delta.

 

…

 

The alarms, the bullet, the grenade. The blood.

Hydra was winning. It hadn’t taken much and that scared him the most. How long had SHIELD been on the verge of crumbling? One hit here, another somewhere else. Was that really all it took to bring them down?

Then again, it seemed pretty possible when secrets were kept from everyone. How can anyone know what to do when nobody knows what’s been going on?

Red was soaking into his palm, staining his hand red.

God, he had tried so hard, so long, to clean off his bloody hands.

Now with Hydra taking over, it hardly seemed worth it.

 

…

 

It was surreal. He’d fought Natasha almost every day since he’s brought her in. Sparring with her was part of his morning routine, somewhere in between coffee and breakfast. And Phil had _trained_ him. They knew each other’s moves simply because they were reflections of each other. So taking down robotic versions of them was far easier than he was anticipating. But then again, he’d estimated pretty high.

What was strange was the fact that that was what he doing!

He was taking down LMDs of his team. They were operational – surprise – and capable of holding their own. He was beginning to see why SHIELD would be sunk if Hydra got this technology. It was so weird fighting Nat without her replying back to his taunts, Phil without watching his eyes roll. But that was only secondary to when he was fighting himself. It was different than Phil, despite them having the same moves. It was like fighting an evil twin or some terrible metaphor for his good and bad sides. But one final hard uppercut had the Barton-bot on his back and sprawled out.

“Please don’t tell me that’s what I look like unconscious,” he muttered, picking up the Robo-Nat’s head from where he’d yanked it off during the fight. He needed to have a conversation with Karen and figured he’d bring along the visual aid.

But just as he was hoisting himself up into the ducts, a shiver went down his spine. His hair stood on end as he tried to pinpoint why he was feeling watched. He scanned the area but found nothing. He didn’t like the idea, but he didn’t really have time to dwell on it.

 

He slammed the head down on the floor next to where Karen was working. She looked at it and flinched, avoiding his eyes. “Oh.” He barely heard her say it.

“ _Want to tell me what this is?”_ he tapped, maybe a little harshly on her shoulder.    

She gave the head another glance but didn’t look up from the latex sheet she was currently pressing microscopic lines into. Clint came in closer, trying to intimidate her into speaking.

“I always imagined this the other way around,” she confessed, making sure he could see her lips by the flashlight. “You know, Black Widow, kill after mating, you two…”

“Karen.”

“Look, it wasn’t my choice. I didn’t pipe up and say I wanted to copy Delta. When I was given that particular ‘jump’ order I asked how high not why.” 

“So Fury didn’t tell you anything?”

“Fury didn’t give the order.” She looked directly at him, her eyes lost and her brows furrowed. “Pierce did…”

There was the shiver again. Clint looked over his shoulder towards the door but once more found nothing but the blaring alarm and the flashing light. He turned back to Karen. “Well I took out all three of them so can we get the hell out of here now?”

Karen bit her lip. “Wouldn’t it be great if there were only three?”

“What?” He scoffed and shook his head in disbelief. “Fine. Okay, Karen, how many _are_ there?”

“Six sets of three.” She indicated the head. “Now I guess five.”

“How do we shut them down?”

She sighed and looked at the sheet she’d been hunched over for almost an hour now. “There’s a backdoor in the programming. The same set of prints to activate the destruct sequence runs a counter program designed to shut down an LMD. The module is in the back of the vault so once I get this done we can go. But I’ll need at least another hour.”

Clint nodded and picked up the dead guard’s gun and the clips from the floor. The rifle was bulky and felt awkward in his hands. But it was a weapon that shot projectiles; he could use it very effectively. He started for the door when he felt Karen’s hand on his wrist.

_“Where are you going?”_

_“More recon,”_ he answered. But they both knew that wasn’t what he really meant. “Be careful,” he told her.

“Same,” she mouthed.

 

He knew he’d messed up. The light had flashed just wrong and his silhouette had been visible for only a second. But that was more than enough time for the two Hydra guards at the end of the hallway to catch him. They shot a few rounds in his direction, forcing Clint to duck behind a corner wall. He heard them shoot again and then silence, save for the alarms. His hair stood on end and his whole body tingled. Something was about to-

The flash grenade’s roll was silent amongst the blaring sirens, but the motion was not invisible. Clint ducked as best as he could, but the inevitable white that flooded his vision and the sore ringing in his ears took over.

Struggling to pull himself out of the fog, he noticed the pairs of boots first. He shoved the butt of his rifle into the shin of one guard and aimed the muzzle at the shoulder of the second. He fired off a single round and clipped the guy enough to make him step back. Clint elbowed the first guard in the nose, snapping the bridge and backing it up with a punch to the gut and a kick to the groin. A harsh toss backwards knocked the guy out on the cement floor. The second guard received similar treatment, but a few kidney punches were also in order. He stole the first guard’s knife and the clips from the second. He yanked on the second guard’s collar and asked fiercely, “Where are the decoys?”

The guard spit in Clint’s face but the archer didn’t even flinch. He punched the guy in the jaw and asked again.

“Cut off one head,” the man answered. “Two more-”

Clint grabbed his jaw and jerked it open. The man gagged but then no foam followed, Clint reasoned he’d kept the guy from resorting to the cyanide tooth out. “Tell me where they are!”

The guy looked a little worried and kept trying to fight Clint’s hands on his jaws. But after a few more minutes of struggle he relaxed and murmured something.

Clint didn’t let go of the guy’s mouth. “Morse code. Tap it.”

The guy did and as soon as he was finished, Clint hit him again, knocking him out like his buddy.

But what he didn’t see was the grenade that the man had pulled. And as soon as he lost consciousness, his hand let go.

The blast rocked Clint back, tossing him against a wall and hitting the back of his head hard. His eyes closed on the blaring alarms turned silent in the ringing of his ears.

They were back to raging sirens when he regained consciousness, however long later. His whole body was aching bitterly but a quick assessment told him at least it hadn’t been a frag grenade. He was bleeding from the wall’s impact and, yep, there went lunch from the concussion. But he managed to get to his feet and with some difficulty, even walk, retracing his steps to make it back to Karen.

 

…

 

The alarms, the bullet, the grenade. The blood.

All his mind could concentrate on was the blood pouring out and the betrayal he felt in his heart. He hated Pierce, hated Fury, hated SHIELD.

No.

He could never hate SHIELD. It had been corrupted, but he’d been a part of twisted things before. Even something as colorful as the circus had sordid dealings.   

He hated Pierce. Yes. Hydra, yes. But SHIELD, SHIELD would forever be something separate in his mind.

 

…

 

“The dock,” he told her once he was finally close enough. “They’re at the dock.”

Karen frowned deeply. “Means they’re trying to ship them out.” She let out a long frustrating growl. “They weren’t even supposed to be functional!” She wiped at her brow, flicking away sweat. Clint could barely make out four prints etched into the latex.

“ _How much more time do you need?”_

She took in a breath and relaxed her arms, rolled her head and made her neck pop. _“Thirty minutes.”_

That was quite a bit of time. If the guard said they were on the dock then there was a good chance that they were leaving soon. And that had been _how_ long ago…

He needed a way to stall them. If the LMDs got out there, if Hydra had his face, Natasha’s, Phil’s to program and run amok, who knows the kind of damage that they could do? Thinking quickly Clint asked, “ _Does your radio run on back up batteries?”_

She nodded, but had her brows drawn together.  

“ _I’m going to buy us some time.”_ He snatched up her radio and portable speakers and silently smirked at playlist on her MP3 player. Leave it to Karen’s terrible taste in music to help save the world.

He set the radio in a vent about a hundred feet from where he was hidden with the rifle behind a wall. He’d cranked the thing up as high as it could go and was blaring Karen’s terrible indie hipster shit. It started to attract attention and sure enough, Hydra goons started filtering in. He waited until they were close before hitting a button on the radio’s remote that switched speaker input.

The sound was now coming from two hundred feet down the hall. And then again forty feet to the right. The guards slowly started figuring it out and began walking towards the other one when Clint switched it back. They knew they were being played with. But that was the point. Now they were trying to guess the game. If they knew someone was messing with them, it would make them paranoid. And paranoia would slow them down. They’d have to recheck everything, double back to make sure no one was following them, was after them.

At least that’s what he hoped.  

Making sure to keep as quiet as possible he slipped away and back to Karen’s office.

“All set,” she told him. The latex sheet before her had a perfect set of five fingerprints, right-handed with a scar on the ring finger.

“Who’s are they?” he asked her curiously. That scar seemed familiar…

She shook her head. “Sorry, Clint. This is one secret that I can’t let go. You wouldn’t like the answer anyway.”

That only made him more curious. He thought about demanding that she tell him, but they had a shipment of his old team in the form of robots to stop. He’d ask her again once they were out of this place.

The trek to the vault was tiring and difficult. Clint’s head was splitting in two from his concussion, and Karen’s side was still bleeding from getting shot. They eventually made it down the elevator shaft, only stopping once when Karen twisted wrong and tortured her side. She kept her scream mostly quiet in the echoey shaft.

The door to the vault was still open and Clint stood by it in case anyone should charge in. Karen made her way to the back and opened the secret compartment that housed the module. She let the machine scan the prints she’d made and waited tensely for it to confirm or reject them.

The thing made a noise like an error message and announced they were inconclusive. Karen swore loudly at the screen. Clint watched as her confidence cracked. This was a perfectionist facing the idea of imperfection. He could feel her terror.

Karen rescanned the prints and again they came back inconclusive.

She stepped back and punched the wall. Clint could tell her knuckles fractured.

“Scan ‘em again,” he told her.

She glared at him, tears in her eyes, and made no move to the machine.

“Karen,” he started seriously, but then switched to a practiced shrug. “They’re just better than the originals.”

She didn’t grasp it at first but then started to laugh. She wiped here eyes and scanned the prints once more. They both watched as the screen flashed green, granting the artist access. With a few keystrokes she opened the needed file and executed the order.

“Alright. If this baby did her job, then those LMDs are toast.”

But neither felt like they were out of the woods yet.

It was there again, the shiver up his spine, his hair on end. His eyes scanned the expanse of the lower level and once more turned up nothing. But it was stronger this time, the sensation. And it wasn’t going away. “We need to get out of here,” he announced. “Something’s not-”

A tremble shook the whole floor. A rushing sound filled the space. The air got instantly colder.

“The reservoir!” Karen shrieked, making her way towards the vents.

“What?”

“The lower level houses the a giant reservoir set to flood the place in case…”

“In case what?”

“In case someone intrudes. Hydra must’ve-“

“At least we know they’re still here.” He shoved her to the elevator shaft and cranked open the doors. “How long can you hold your breath?”

“Why?”

“Because if we’re not lucky, we may be swimming out of here.” He pulled her inside as the first wave sloshed past. The elevator shaft started to fill with water as the agents scrambled up the cables away from the rushing flood. They weren’t going to make it. The pressure of the water had pushed in the doors and the shaft was filling up quickly.

Barton swung out at the nearest ledge and pried open the doors. He glanced behind him to see Karen still clinging to her cable, the water catching up quickly. “Karen!” he hollered.

She looked at him with terrified eyes. “I can’t make that jump.”

“I’ll catch you,” he told her, keeping his eyes locked so she’d know it was true.

She glanced back at the water and then at him. He’d believed in her work; she would believe in his.

She pushed off from the cable and stretched out her arms, feeling the rush of cold air getting closer beneath her. There was nothing but that air for a long time and then, yes, the strength of an experienced agent’s hands.

And then a sharp, snap of pain. Her injured side smacked into the edge of the floor as she landed on it.

Clint pulled her in and away from the shaft, closing the doors to try and keep the water from leaking here too. Wherever here was…

“Where’s the dock from here?”

Karen took a long breath, dropped her head into her hands for a moment. She took stock of their whereabouts and answered, “Two floors up, northeast corner.” She stood to get on her way, but the pain in her side forced her to stay seated. The cotton balls were red and soaked through with water and blood. She was out of adrenaline and the pain was becoming too real.

Clint set a gentle hand on her arm and helped her to her feet, telling her she’d be okay. He ripped the bottom hem of his shirt and had her hold it to her side in place of the useless cotton bandage. He took her shoulders in his hands and looked her in the eye. “We’re going to make it. We’re going to swing by the dock to make sure we’ve stopped them and then we’re getting out of here. Okay?”

She nodded but it lacked conviction.

It was slow going up the stairs. Clint was still dizzy from his rounds with the grenades and Karen was losing strength with every step.

But they eventually made it up two floors and were working their way to the dock when they heard a _click_ behind them.

Clint put his hands up in the air and turned slowly. The Hydra agent kept the gun trained on the archer’s chest.

“Sir,” the man called out into a comm.

“Go ahead,” the voice answered. Clint knew that voice. But from where…

“It’s Barton, Sir. The real one.”

There was static on the end of the line for a long moment before the voice returned. “Bring him in.”

That voice…

“There’s a girl with him. Looks like an agent.”

“Unless she’s Romanov, put two in her chest.”

It hit.

Pierce?  

“Yes, Sir.” But the guy didn’t even have a chance to take a breath before Barton had the knife he’d stolen from one of the guards out and between the guy’s eyes. Clint grabbed the knife and wiped it off on the guard’s pants leg.

“Was that who I thought it was on the line?” Karen asked quietly, tiredly. 

“’Fraid so,” Clint answered.

And that meant Pierce was Hydra…

A crippling fear set in that Barton couldn’t shake. If Pierce was Hydra then… then SHIELD was in sorry order. _If there even is a SHIELD._ Oh, God, that hurt. Could it be true? Was Hydra taking over? Was Pierce really Hydra?

He shook his head. Now was not the time to dwell on the betrayal. “C’mon.”

They reached the dock and stayed in the shadows, watching with some satisfaction at the fires that were consuming the place. The LMDs had blown up and melted and at least they had that small win under their belts in light of everything.

But there were a lot of questions still unanswered and Clint hated being in the dark. So as they pulled away from their hiding spot he tapped on her shoulder, “ _Were they Pierce’s prints?”_

She shook her head. “ _Not out of the woods yet.”_

They slithered back inside and looked for a close and yet easy exit. Karen was starting to fade and her breathing was getting ragged. She’d lost quite a bit of blood but that much…

Clint looked at her wound again. It was too far out to have hit a lung, but maybe there was internal bleeding from the impact. He looked closer. He judged the height the distance the bruising the blood.

Shit.

“Karen, I think you cracked a rib.”

She shrugged. “Maybe.” Then, “Elevator.”

“The rib may have splintered and cut an intestine. You’re bleeding internally.”

“I’ll be fine,” she whispered. She certainly didn’t look fine.

“Karen.”

She fell. Her blood had soaked the bandage and was now seeping onto the floor, black in the red flashing lights.

They were exposed, in the open; any Hydra agent patrolling the halls could see them. But he knew deep down this was as far as she could go.

“Stay with me, Karen,” he commanded. Her eyes were growing more heavily lidded as if in spite of his words. “We’re almost there, dammit! Stay with me.”

She opened her eyes, but just barely. Her lips quirked into a smile that held no humor and all fear. “The Nazi’s burned art,” she murmured.

“What?”

“In the war. They burned artwork under orders at Hitler’s death.”

Clint leaned in closer to catcher her voice over the still blaring alarm, to read her lips at the still flashing light.

“And now they’re back. They wanted my art, but I beat them to the punch.” She took in a shuttering breath. “Set it all on fire.” Tears came to her eyes. “Three years, Clint. Three years to get Delta back. That’s why I went with it. So we could have the best back again. But they were just a copy.” She closed her eyes and Clint shook her awake.

“We’re almost there, Karen. I can take you.”

The alarms, the bullet, the grenade. The blood.

Why did everything begin and end as red?

She put a shaky hand on his cheek. “I’m sorry, Clint. I thought I could do it. But they weren’t perfect. It was impossible to make a perfect copy.” She coughed and he tried to ignore the red that came up. “Copy’s not better than the original.” She smiled at him and he gave her a sad grin back.

He picked her up and she screamed at the pain. “We’re almost there,” he repeated.

He took a few steps and felt her grow limper with each one of them.

“Coulson,” she mumbled.

“Hmm,” he stopped and looked down at her.

“The prints. Those were who I used.”

“I thought SHIELD didn’t keep dead agent’s prints on file?”

She mustered up her strength to give him a knowing smile. “They don’t.” A breath. “They came to me to make the death certificate.”

Clint pulled his brows in. The only reason they’d do that is if they’d…need one forged.

“Karen, is Coulson alive?”

She just hummed. They were close to the exit now. Clint restarted his steps, quickening them as the thought pounded his head. Coulson was alive? How?

And what happened to SHIELD?

And Pierce?

And Hydra? And together? And…

Karen let out a long breath that didn’t sound promising. “Hey, Avenger,” she called softly. He looked down at her. “Avenge me.”

“Karen…” but he felt her go heavy in his arms and still against his chest.

One step. Two. Three.

He was outside.

 

…

 

The brief had told him that no matter what, his mission was to be completed. Clint wasn’t sure if that included there not being a SHIELD to technically be doing the mission for. But he’d put the passports and IDs in his pocket and they’d survived the raid so he felt like they should at least get some use. After all, they were babies and the deserved to see the world he was to bring them into.

“Herr Scwartzhaus,” Von Strucker addressed as he shook Clint’s hand. “I would like you to meet the twins.” He directed Clint’s attention to two glass cages. One held a boy – Pietro – as his brief had called him, and the other a girl, Wanda.

“Welcome to the age of miracles.”

Clint smiled but in his mind he corrected, _Welcome to the end._   

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> A word on Karen:  
> She may or may not be my SHIELD identity - like if I was a part of SHIELD I would totally be in the art department. And let's face it, SHIELD would need one crazy art department. But I got the idea for her when some guy came up to me one day and asked if my name was Karen (it's not btw.) I was with a friend and we came up with this scenario about how it was a fake ID and long story short, Karen Hawthorne became this character that I would love to have.  
> Originally she was going to show up with Coulson's team as one of the few surviving members of SHIELD after the Hydra take over and data dump online. One of the characters was going to make a snide comment about how, "Oh, it's nice we have someone to put the eagle logo on pamphlets." To which she had this great come back about her forging abilities and how her job means missions get green lit in the first place. Because those fake papers and IDs don't make themselves, right? So Karen is the art department, and I feel bad that this ended up being her story, but maybe there will be prequels or flashbacks to show her work at SHIELD. Maybe even a funeral scene where Clint could say a few words. IDK. But I hope you enjoyed the story and my take on what happened during the fall of SHIELD.  
> Thanks for reading!!!


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